Films

The Criterion Collection is a movie publisher dedicated since the mid '80s to bringing audiences across the world, old and new, the best of the best in the wide world of film. Here are some of our very favorites.

Here they are. Not this one. That would be thriller, singular. We're talking about thrillers, the action genre's brainer little brother, and the subject of the tenth and final installment in our Definitive Men's Movie Collection. Like actions, thrillers get your blood pumping, though they use more subtle tactics -- suspense over pyrotechnics. We've heard it said that with thrillers, you don't need to pay for your whole seat -- just the edge. That's silly, because most theaters make you pay for your whole seat regardless, but we understand the sentiment. Have we saved the best for last? You decide.

When most of us hear the word "movie", we think of Hollywood -- fair, given the global domination of Hollywood-produced Spielberg and Harry Potter films, but perhaps a tad ignorant, considering India's Bollywood produces twice Hollywood's output every year and reaches a larger audience. As demonstrated by the quality of the films in the Streaming Cinephile piece that we posted a while back, foreign films deserve a place in the spotlight. But while that list only featured foreign language films available for streaming on Netflix, this list features the top foreign language films, period.

Romance movies aim to capture the highs of love found, the lows of love lost, and everything in between. We've added 10 more films to our list of the best romance movies, just in time for Valentine's Day.

As any second grade teacher knows, children learn what they want to learn. Bobby doesn’t feel like learning division today? Not gonna happen. Unless…well, unless he learns without realizing it. The old pill in the ice cream trick, so to speak. Swallowing the medicine in the guise of something delicious, the innocent Bobby gets what...

Part five of our series covers sci-fi and fantasy movies. Of all our sections, this was the most difficult to create: not because we argued over the selections (though we did), but because we argued over where to draw the line on what constitutes sci-fi and fantasy. For instance, does Richard Linklater’s cerebral Waking Life...

The fourth part in our series covers family movies. They're the ones you loved as a kid, but haven't revisited since because, well, your office buddies don't want to watch Bartok the Magnificent. But with Thanksgiving approaching, there's no better time to dust off these old classics with loved ones. Family movies provide lighthearted laughs in abundance, and sometimes tears as well (damn you, Up!) They scrub away the confusion of adult life and remind us what's important. In fact, some of life's most important lessons are hidden in their colorful scenes. More importantly, the really good ones are fun to watch at any age. Just try not to start bawling when Mustafa eats it.

While many of our lives resemble dramas, or comedies, our society has thankfully evolved to a point where many of us avoid daily physical danger. Yet, strangely enough, the human animal craves danger. We get a thrill from adrenaline. To fill the void in our safe, vanilla lives, we turn to action. Is it wrong...

Throughout the selection process to find the funniest comedies, we kept echoing the same mantra: “Is this movie really that good?” The answer was consistent: shouts of “it’s hilarious!” were parried just as assuredly by “it sucks!” Comedy, we quickly discovered, is just as diverse and polarizing as drama. Really the two aren’t so different....

Good movies bring art to life, combining audio and visuals (and occasionally smells, as in the case of 1959’s disastrous AromaRama and 1960’s Smell-O-Vision, may they forever rest in peace) in ways that push the limits of human imagination. They require little effort to watch, yet have the power to change a life. They represent...

While it’s undeniably cool to adorn your home theater with minimalist or unique movie posters (like these, and these), we know your sound-proofed walls need art as nuanced as your taste in film itself. The Los Angeles Film Map (~$40) has you covered in every direction. Littered within its 24 x 32-inch borders are the...

We promised to leave no steak unturned during our month of beef, and we’re men of our word. As it happens, beef’s got a thespian side that The Academy repeatedly fails to acknowledge. Our budget for gold statues was blown on jerky and skillets, but that won’t stop us from proposing a new award category...

Wes Anderson is a polarizing director. People either hate or love his films. End of story. The Darjeeling Limited ($25) tends to rank lower on his list of films, possibly because it was co-written by Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola instead of Owen Wilson or Noah Baumbach. But in our book it’s still a highly...